you wake up in the morning and your heart sings. my heart to does not because they constantly think it will not be good it takes at least one hour before i think here we go. if you wait for the moment to come first you will not do it. morning. thank you for that introduction. it's great to be here. um, you all arena >> great to be here. of peoe, the heritage foundation played a very important rolehaas

as a student and with the war on campus the information you needed to combat what was e going on everywhere else. it is a great pleasure to bers.s asked to be here this is a didn' hero of the conservative nt tment. growing up there was not that many people you did not may have that many people to look up to two combat the isunami washing over americaher and it is a pleasure to be

asked to be here. the book came out last year. i spent four years in china. i spent a conservative view of the relationship with beijing. etfs the relationship is predicated on an gamble thatadeh we increase our relationship andbe trade then they become if more like us.ll become if we make them richer thanme, they become free. and getting more economic o rights that is a gamble. the thesis of my book, that is not necessarilyr less occurring. there is a new china that

the middle class is going fantastically. that is not true. but even more significantly the the middle-class is not as dynamic as ours it is not based on individualow, initiatives you were cardou w ample yourself up by the p bootstraps the communistafter te party after the massacre of tiananmen square the communist party scratched their head what people bono had uprisings across chinato everywhere else the to detriment moved in to to

suppress uprisings across the country with communist party looked in the near and decided to loosen up a little to continue economic liberal visitationease to help the middle class but not make a free society but fr coopt the educated class leading the revolutionhe rev before that is what theyso have t right now. ad the businessman and leadersth and the white-collar class low where they are to the communist party you not havetiot been awe fraction between the entrepreneurs and business owners and the party because they are wide in the same.

if anybody bucks the system they can be replaced. the underlying crisis i e book the th president bowling to the president of china, hu wo jintao. state he is the head of the state state, the land of the free and enact of subservience. t you have to think what that means and the policies he is t implementingo and wants toh ch implementi and what that means for our relationship nn the world. growi look at the amount of tire debtyear of economic growth.

so everything bought, produced, consumed, all the serce of that president obama is stacking up. d, our debt gobbles. a whole year's economy of the biggest economy in the world. so you have to think all these programs that obama, all these stimulus programs, i mean, where does that money come from? we're broke, we don't have it, so we have to borrow the money. and one of the biggest lenders that's happy to give us money is beijing. and people don't think about that, but eventually there are policy consequences to being indebted. can you really to continue to be the freest, most powerful country in the world if you're the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world? i think the answer is, no. and then you have to look at who you owe that money to. and in china's case, um, i think you have to put a value proposition on who these guys are. um, and this goes back to our original gamble.

if we engage them -- i mean, the alternative is another question, but, you know, if we continue to engage them and make them richer and they're not becoming freer, well, let's take apart exactly how bad these people are to see how this policy is working. and i'll just go through a few examples. um, one is -- and this is, i think, when i was promoting this book, i did tons and tons of radio, and one of the things that people hadn't heard of before is how, um, china uses the judicial system, um, to feed the black market for organs for transplants in the whole world. there's a huge demand because medical care has advanced so much. there's this huge demand worldwide for organ for transplant. and the largest provider, actually, is china.

and where they get these organs is the whole world combined two years ago executed about 700 prisoners worldwide. i think iran led with roughly 300, almost half. and this isn't, this isn't anything in capital punishment, it's just to put the numbers in perspective. china they estimate, amnesty international estimates that china executes annually between 5,000-7,000. so the whole world is 700, china is upwords of 10,000. and this can be crimes as little as a farmer being executed for chopping down trees without a permit. they've executed somebody before for evading tolls on toll roads. so, you know, you don't have to be an axe murderer in china to be put to death. and there's no appeal in china. so if you go to court for one of

these crimes and you're sentenced to death, they just take you out in the backyard, kneel you down and put a bullet in the back of your head. there's no appeal, you don't get to say bye to mom, it's all over. so, but where this gets, i think, particularly scary is, um, there is a -- [inaudible] in new york a few years ago where they had representatives of the beijing government meeting with some americans and some doctors who were posing as consumers of organ for transplant. and they had these representatives of china had a price list. and it was how much different organs can cost if you want to buy 'em. and they said we will shoot to order. so they were saying we -- you just tell us what you want, and we'll get it for you. and investigations that have come out since then, it's been

shown that prosecutors in china and judges have a list of what is in particular demand at that time. so if someone comes before a court, the prosecutor and the judge knows what the economic incentive is to convict this person and sentence them to death. so, um, i think that's just sort of one egregious example of the place we're dealing with, and this is happening right now. um, another is this idea, you know, how benevolent is our engagement, and are we just kidding ourselves? i think the 2008 beijing olympics are a great example. i was living in hong kong working for "the wall street journal" at the time, and we ran this great op-ed, great op-ed but on a terrible subject, and it was every time the international olympic committee would visit beijing, the communist party would go crazy

making the place look like disney world. they did things like would put paper leaves on trees in winter to make it look, you know, happy and not sad and depressing which beijing is in winter. they'd spray paint the grass green when the grass was dead. so they'd do these funny things. but then they'd do a lot of horrible things too. for example, they would go round up all the physically and mentally handicapped adults and children and throw them in jail because they didn't want anyone to see any sign of weakness in the chinese people. and in some of these cases, there's this one case where this 8 or 9-year-old boy didn't come home from school, he was mentally retarded. and his parents were, obviously, concerned and freaking out. and three or four years -- three or four days later the police -- and this is when the olympic committee was visiting, and they did one of these round-ups. three or four days later the boy

was dropped -- dumped off on the parents' front porch, and he had just been beaten to death by police. he was a young, vulnerable person who, i guess the police were just having tear kicks and just beat up this poor little boy and dumped him on the parents' house, on their doorstep. "the wall street journal" published the story about this before beijing was approved for the olympics that year. for 2008. so this was known, the olympic committee knew about it, and beijing won the olympics anyway. i think if you're looking for an anecdote about how serious our engagement is in and if we're really trying to improve society over there, you know, everyone likes to think the olympic games are about, you know, building relationships and making the world better, and i think this is a great example of how -- and they didn't lose any sponsors either, by the way, right? coca-cola still spent millions and millions of dollars sponsoring those olympic games even with that kind of

information in hand. and i guess the last anecdote at least on the human rights issues that everyone knows about the one child policy in china where women are only allowed to have one baby in their entire life, and if they get pregnant a second time, they're forced to have an abortion and then usually forced against their will to be sterilized by the state as well. what a lot of people don't know about the one child policy is that it's not only that you can only have one child, it's that you have to have it on the government's schedule. so, um, the calendar they'll have, you know, all these villages and cit cities, went wn can have a permit to have a baby. if a woman gets pregnant not on the government calendar, all right, you don't have a child, you get your one child but that's in five years, they'll

still force her to get an abortion even though she hasn't had a baby yet. it kind of brings home how the policy's even worse than a lot of people know. i think the other thing and i don't know if i'm bumping up -- i think i'm bumping up against my time, so i'll just touch on a couple things quickly. on the trade issue is one thing is they cut every corner you can cut there. they have no -- you know, they break every law, rule, regulation in the book, and that includes health regulations. so a lot of the products that come here and, sure, it's a big flood. so you have millions of products and maybe only thousands of them are bad, but the thousands of products that are bad can have real consequences. what most people don't know people think of toys and electronics and things like that, but china's now shipping

four billion pounds of food a year to the united states which if you look at all the corners they cut on code violations, um, you know, the food and drug administration at our ports rejects more products from china than anywhere else. thomas jefferson hospital in philadelphia did a study of cook ware that's sent here from china, and 10% of it had lead in it. and that's going to all the stores you know of which i won't mention, but all the stores across the country are selling that stuff. 10% has lead content that wouldn't get approved here. the last thing i'll do, i'll say is there's kind of this myth that american power can't be superseded or, you know, i think it falls back to, i think, which is a beautiful belief in our manifest destiny. but people tend to think that we're always going to be on top, and i think that makes us lazy where we don't have to do what it takes to stay on top.

we're cutting our defense spending all the time. the current budget agreement was based on cuts, and if the cuts didn't happen, they'd automatically come out of defense. china increases their military budget double digits every year as we're cutting and investing highly in new ways, new-age weapons. and right now they have the largest military in the world. people think we do. we have roughly 1.4 million troops in uniform, and they have 2.3. so, um, if you look, i guess to wrap it up, we're receding, our unemployment's higher, debt's terrible, china's had double-digit, 10% growth for almost 20 years. we're not going to stay on top if we continue to recede and they continue to climb. and we have to change, you know, this is an important election year, and we need to start

making some changes otherwise, um, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. thank you. >> thank you, brett. [applause] questions? yes, in front. you can stand, just -- speak loudly. >> thank you so much for being here this morning with us. i'm really interested when you were talking about how much debt china's buying from us now and bowing to beijing, aware of the future that china's projected to have and our alliances with them based on the economic standpoint. what is america's alternative to allying with beijing? >> right. that's the great question. i mean, and i think that's, when you get down to it, i think that's the, you know, "bowing to beijing" is mostly the red dragon's demagoguery book. it can have another part saying china might just blow up and collapse. i mean, you don't know what's going to happen. but i think the takeaway from it is that any of this isn't

inevitable, it's just that our own policy positions are putting us in a vulnerable position. we're spending more than we have, so i think the answer is we need to tighten our belt, look in the mirror and get our act together, you know? and, you know, i think the lesson is, the financial lesson is, you know, we need to be responsible as a country again. and if we're not spending more than we have, then we don't have to borrow it from bad guys like the chinese communists. >> yes. >> my question was similar. but i would maybe have you expound on it. >> sure. >> other than the debt, because you talked a lot about human rights issues and such, what are other policy issues that you'd like to see changed, other policy directions in our policies towards china? >> well, you know, i think a lot of it is we just have to change our policies at home, and then it won't matter. i think the only reason china's

a danger is because, um, you know, we don't have our act together. if we're smart, the only thing we're just going to look at china in the rearview mirror. but, you know, i think it's always risky to, i mean, i don't know how many strings attached you want to put on policies in general. um, but, i mean, i think, you know, defense policy, we bring chinese admirals and generals over here and basically show them everything. we take them to very sensitive areas. when we have new planes or submarine, we'll show their most senior leadership, you know, sensitive information that's, you know, and weaponry that's being developed. and this is supposed to be a, you know, officer exchange. you know, they take us over there and show our generals, like, their cafeteria and stuff like that, and we show them our new stealth fighters. i mean, i think in general

america needs to be serious again, and i don't think we are. if you look at our debt and our defense policies, i think, um, it's just a -- i think we're getting a wake-up call, and we have an election. we need to address everything, basically, across the board. >> i'd like to ask you a question. um, i think your book's very important and very readable. how do you explain that our political candidates are simply not talking about china? i don't think they've read your book. i don't think they address it as an issue, and it is an important issue. >> yeah, that's a great question. i think the answer is kind of like the answer anytime anyone asks why something is or is not addressed in washington, it's all about money. so political candidates need a lot of money to run for office. a lot of that money comes from the businesses that have interests in china. so if you, if you speak out too much against china, you get a

lot of pressure right away. so -- i don't think all of it is necessarily nefarious in that until i lived in china, i kind of believed that our only option was to engage them as well. and i think it's easy to think that. but i think it's just because in the west as people, as the economy is developed people got more, more rights and more freedom, it doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the world works that way. and the government in china has -- their gamble is we won't say anything to them, and by the time we realize this is a mistake that, you know, they'll be on top. but i think the real thing is just, the typical money in politics is part of it, and i think, um, i think we have the

best is system in the world. so i think it's just people need to speak out more. it's amazing if you look at how many americans think china's a threat. it's something like 60%. so politicians who aren't talking about china, i guess, you know, they're not representing their constituents. >> well, if money is the answer to my question, money in politics, i guess that explains why the only one who really speaking out about china is donald trump. he doesn't need their money. >> yeah. he's -- [laughter] the donald's great on this issue. he actually sent me a note saying he loved the book. you know, a lot of times when people have the freedom to say what they want, they say the right things. and mr. trump definitely is saying a lot of it on china, and i think he's bringing up a lot

of very important issues on other questions as far as mr. trump is talking about the need to sort of reestablish our manufacturing base. and it's one of the things when we, when you get everything from somewhere like china is that there is a little bit of myth on some of the free trade talk in that you make decisions as a country, and if you just look at the auto try, for -- auto indus, for example, and it's easy to bash detroit for losing money and making stupid decisions. but a lot of u.s. laws actually discriminate against american manufacturers to the benefit of foreigners, foreign companies. for example, the big three is all unionized and has to use all uaw workers, and all the owners' contracts and negotiations -- onerous contracts and

negotiations that go with that. ford, for example, if they would try to break a uaw contract, you'd have nationwide strikes, it would cripple the company. companies cannot by law, they don't have the nuclear option like the unions do. so ford can't say we're going to fire everybody and hire scabs. i mean, they'd be out of business in a second. foreign companies don't have those restrictions. for example, mercedes, mercedes and bmw have factories in the south, korean and japanese companies have factories in the south, and thai not unionized. they don't have uaw labor. i mean, we have foreign companies that come to the united states sub factors, which i think is great, they're employing americans, but they have a better situation than american companies do on american soil. and i think there's something fundamentally messed up about that when foreign companies can produce the same product in

america cheaper than american companies do. and those are policy decisions. so it's not just ha that american labor is more expensive and china's cheaper and that's why we have to buy all the junk from china. we've made policy decisions that have set that up

you have this big disparity where i think the live birth for girls to boys is something like 6 to 1 in china, so you have millions and millions and millions more boys than girls, so -- i mean, one, if a man wants to get married, there's nobody to get married to. so i think you have a lot of social consequences to that. friends in southeast asia when i visit the thailand and philippines, i say, you know, they're going to invade you just for your women. but that's going to run into a lot of problems. when you have millions and millions of more of one sex than

the other, something's going to give at some point, you know? but i don't think they will just because they have this view that population is a problem and not a resource. and when you have that view, you're looking at how you can get rid of people, not how you can, you know, give them more opportunity. >> my question relates to this rhetoric you're using about china being a threat. seems like a modern stream of international relations theory defines that threats are more created when we speak about people as threats. i'm just wondering if the more we talk about china being a threat, won't they see us as being hostile towards them and that risk, well, negative consequences in the forms of, you know, trade wars eventually? maybe conflict? >> right, that's a good question. um, you know, i think they look at us and just laugh. you know? you have the president of the

united states, i mean, still technically speaking the only sort of superpower on the planet doing a full-blown bow to the president of china, and there's nothing -- i mean, you can't take that seriously. how can you take a country seriously that has a head of state that bows to, you know, people who call them an enemy or a competitor, a strategic competitor or a threat or whatever you want? he's a president of a communist state, and the president of the united states is bowing to him. i think, i think they're not worried about us at all when it comes down to it. i think they're more worried about their interim problems than they are about us -- their internal problems than they are about us getting our act together. >> um, i was just curious, obviously, the human rights issue over in china's important, but when we also have our own human rights problem here with the trafficsing of aborted baby

parts, how are we to even care about china's problems at this current point? >> i mean, i think that's a great question too, and i think we need to lead by example. one thing is after 9/11, i was stationed overseas after everyone in, -- after 9/11, and the one thing i did learn that the world is anti-u.s., is totally garbage. i actually had a member of the pla, i was going over the border into mainland china, and this is the week or two after 9/11, a pen of the red army just came and said, you know, sorry for what happened to your country. you know, we all look up to america. but everywhere you go especially in poor countries, people, people love america and look to america and aspire to be more like america is. i think that's just a reminder that we need to be what people look up to us